Skip to content
EJR

Search directory for a word / text via the command line

By using grep we can quickly search through files for a specific string of text

To list all occurrences of a particular string / text in your Bash (or ZSH or Shell) command line, run:

searchdir
# Search current directory for files containing specified string (Usage: searchdir "Search Term")
searchdir() {
  if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
    echo -e "\e[0;31mPlease provide a string / search term\e[0m"
  else
    grep -rni "$@" .
  fi
}
grep -ni
grep -ni "Text to search for" .

You can also search recursively in subdirectories by adding the r flag, for example:

searchdir
# Search current directory for files containing specified string (Usage: searchdir "Search Term")
searchdir() {
  if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
    echo -e "\e[0;31mPlease provide a string / search term\e[0m"
  else
    grep -rni "$@" .
  fi
}
grep -rni
grep -rni "Text to search for" .

If you use this sort of thing a lot, you could always add this to your ~/.profile, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.zshrc in handy aliases like:

searchdir
# Search current directory for files containing specified string (Usage: searchdir "Search Term")
searchdir() {
  if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
    echo -e "\e[0;31mPlease provide a string / search term\e[0m"
  else
    grep -rni "$@" .
  fi
}